The bastard was strong. Maybe not as strong as Boyd, but even if Alex wasn’t feigning weakness, he may have had difficulty fending him off. As it was his arms were shaking from the effort to prevent the blade from descending onto his head or neck.

This was supposed to be practice, damn it. They weren’t even wearing armor.

Yield. He should just yield. But even as sweat poured off his body and pain burned in every vein and muscle, he couldn’t make himself say it. So he shook and burned, knowing that in a moment, when Felton succeeded in forcing him to the ground, he wouldn’t have a damned choice.

Felton was smiling and preening as if he were on a tournament yard. His eyes kept flickering behind Alex. Soon he realized why.

“What say you, ladies?” Felton said. “Has he had enough?”

There were ladies in the crowd. Moreover, they were noteworthy enough for Felton to be showing off to. Alex wanted to turn around, but he dared not lose concentration even for an instant. Felton was close enough to taking off his head as it was. He was almost on his knees.

“It appears so, my lord,” one of the women answered.

Alex didn’t need to turn. He recognized that soft, husky voice easily enough, and the realization that the woman watching him suffer—watching him lose, damn it—was Joan Comyn reverberated through him like thunder and made his nerve endings flare as if he’d just been shot from head to toe with a bolt of lightning.

Her voice changed everything. His muscles no longer shook, they hardened with steel. He burned no longer with pain but with strength. It flowed through him—swelled through him—like a raging inferno.

He didn’t stop to think. Instinct took over. Boyd had had him in this position too many times before—Alex knew what to do. Ignoring the blade pressing down inches from his head, he let his muscles go lax for a dangerous instant, using Felton’s momentum—and the edge of Alex’s blade—against him. The loss of resistance caused Felton to startle. When Alex angled his blade, Felton’s skidded. The slipping of his sword was enough to enable Alex to twist away—with a hard jab of his elbow in Felton’s ribs.

The other man let out a surprised “oof” and nearly fell to the ground himself.

It was a gutsy move that with any less precision could have resulted in a serious injury to Alex. Instead, he’d turned the tables, making Felton look like the fool.

And if the look on the other man’s face was any indication, he intended to pay Alex back with death.

Practice, apparently, was over.

Let him come, damn it. Alex was done pretending.

Felton was already coming toward him with his sword raised when a small cloaked figure darted between them.